A Prophet

A dark and difficult journey, A Prophet is a story about politics and ascent to power and an exploration of guilt and brutality.

On the face of it, A Prophet concerns the development of main character Malik (played unflinchingly by Tahar Rahim) from scared and friendless lout to criminal gang boss. Arriving in prison at the age of 19, he inadvertently finds himself in a position in which he can be of use to Niels Arestrup’s terrifying thug Cesar Luciani by getting close to a new inmate and killing him. Once Malik has proved his worth as a ruthless killer, he quickly takes on more responsibility and is gradually able to run his own drug racket.

The film’s squalor is unrelenting, from the grisly violence between the inmate gangs to the sordid pleasure of success; Malik later gets high on heroin and cursorily sleeps with a prostitute who has been sent to his cell as a reward. Jaques Audiard’s lens probes into the darkest recesses of prison life. Early in the film, Malik kills Reyeb, a Muslim inmate who is only being held briefly in the prison before a trial. He is tutored by Luciani’s gang in an unbearably tense build up before we see the whole awful scene unfold less elegantly than planned. Malik may not be as slick as he would want, but he manages to murder his charge in a horrific and realistically bloody struggle. As he concentrates on covering his tracks, we follow every detail with him.

A Rubicon has been crossed, although Malik initially appears to harbour a guilt of Dostoyevskyan proportions, he quickly (and bizarrely) incorporate the ghost of Reyeb into his mental life. In fact, the dead man’s appearances to him give the young criminal strength and seem to provide a feeling of invincibility that allows him to grow ever more ruthless and single minded as he acquires greater influence.

Audiard has won the Grand Prix at Cannes and the London Film Festival’s Best Film prize for a film which is far more than it initially appears. Honest and intriguing without being brow beating or oppressive, the clarity of A Prophet is stark and invigorating. This is a film about finding out what it takes to survive and becoming inured to violence, about politics and the art of coming to have enough self possession, strength and wit to make other people do what you need.



Released in UK cinemas on 22nd February 2010 by Optimum Releasing.

Written by Huw Green.